A to F school accountability grades not as scary as expected

Oct. 31, 2012

Joey Heitzman (front left) and Alexis Adams show off their long division answers with other third- and fourth-grade students at Indianapolis Public Schools' School 90, on the city's Westside. The school is one of the district's high achievers and has received another A rating. / Robert Scheer / The Star

The big new grading factor is a measure of academic growth giving extra credit for students whose test scores grew faster than that of their peers.

During public testimony before the new system was approved in February, a wide spectrum of educators and education-focused organizations opposed it, making rare allies of frequently opposed groups such as the state’s urban school association and the Chamber of Commerce. The chief complaints were that the new rules were too complex and that the growth measure was potentially unfair to some schools.

Minor changes helped, said Derek Redelman, vice president of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. It’s still too heavily focused on pass-fail rates and student-to-student comparisons rather than how students measure up to state standards, he said, but it is improved.

“We continue to have some concerns,” he said. “But we also acknowledge that Indiana is one of the first states to incorporate any form of growth and appreciate that this model is still a work in progress.”

In February, a dry run simulation of how the new rules would affect the grades put schools on edge. The number of A’s crashed by more than 20 percentage points to 24 percent statewide, and F’s doubled to 10 percent.

Why were the actual grades so different from the estimate? Several factors contributed.

Some schools certainly saw their academic performance change from last year. But February’s simulation also used a slimmed-down version of the new system, state officials said. It relied on less data and wasn’t as carefully checked for errors.

A big reason was likely the inclusion of new success measures for high schools that aim to gauge how well they prepare their graduates for college and careers — measures that weren’t ready when the simulation was run.

When extra credit was added for schools that hit targets for the percentage of students with achievements such as taking advanced classes, completing college credit or earning industry certifications was added, grades rose, state Superintendent Tony Bennett said.

In the long run, he said, the new system will benefit students.

“This is a very good day for Indiana schools,” Bennett said. “Overall it’s very positive news. We believe these measurements are far better than the old measures.”Critics, however, remained troubled by a new system they say is overly complex and produces some curious results.

Glenda Ritz, a Washington Township teacher challenging Bennett in the Tuesday election, said the new system was so complicated schools could not understand why they received their grades. She called for an independent audit to evaluate its fairness.

“They can’t prove the validity of the growth model,” she said.

One expected beneficiary of the new system — high-poverty school districts — instead fared worse overall than the rest of the state. Such districts have long pushed for growth measures for schools, arguing that many of their students come to school far behind their peers and make great progress but still fall short of a passing score on state tests.

The new system, however, brought few rewards for those schools. Grades dropped for about a third of schools in districts where at least half of all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

In fact, some of the highest poverty districts saw a large number of schools with falling grades — 65 percent of schools in Hammond saw their grades go down, as did 37 percent of those in Indianapolis Public Schools and 32 percent in Fort Wayne.

By contrast, the state’s wealthiest districts saw very few schools with lower grades — 13 percent of schools had falling grades in Carmel, 10 percent in Hamilton Southeastern and no schools in Zionsville. Meanwhile, about 14 percent of schools in those three districts saw their grades rise. IPS had 25 percent of schools raise their grades.

Some wealthy districts were helped by the elimination of a rule that previously capped schools at a C if their scores for students at risk for failure didn’t make “adequate yearly progress” under the federal No Child Left Behind law. That was true at Hamilton Southeastern, where both district high schools jumped this year from C’s to A’s. Six of the district’s 20 schools got better grades.

Bennett said schools with lots of needy students may need to adjust to the state’s new expectations and learn how best to use their test data to target student needs.

“Part of this is you will see a progression as they become more comfortable with the data,” he said. “We are going to see some schools move lower because we have a different set of measures.”

Some schools, Bennett said, already have begun to capitalize on the new measures. His favorite local example is Broad Ripple High School.

Last year Broad Ripple was nearly taken over by the state after six years of F grades. Instead, the state board assigned two companies as lead partners to help guide the school toward better scores.

On Wednesday, Broad Ripple earned a B.

Principal Mike Akers said Scholastic Inc. and The New Teacher Project helped build processes by which teachers shared strategies and got continuous training.

Teachers also have spent 30 minutes of additional instruction each day in English or math, based on students’ deficiencies.

Sophomore Bryan Thompson said student have noticed the changes in instruction.

“Before, teachers teach one way, and that’s the only way they teach,” he said. “Now, there are many ways in which they teach and adapt to how students learn.”

Also in IPS, School 96 made an even more stunning turnaround. It was among eight schools statewide that jumped from an F under the old system to an A under the new one.

Principal Mary Siefert thinks it has more to do with changes at the school than the grading system. Last year was her first year at School 96, and the staff placed a heavy focus on vocabulary building for a student body that has many children learning English as a second language.

Teachers, she said, made the difference.

“My teachers were here early in the morning and stay late at night. It wasn’t an 8-to-4 job,” Siefert said. “Never once did they complain about the work that it took to get our kids to this level.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Perry Township’s Abraham Lincoln Elementary School was one of five schools statewide to fall from an A rating to an F. The school in the past was hailed for making progress with an especially challenged student body. Lincoln has among the highest percentages in the state of poor children, students in special education and those learning English as second language.

“We were shocked because we do know the quality of educational programs at Abraham Lincoln Elementary,” Assistant Superintendent Vickie Carpenter said.

The way the new system compares students’ growth with other students around the state, rather than with the students’ own prior performance, fails to fairly illustrate the progress they made, Carpenter said. The district’s appeal of the F grade was denied.

“We want to be accountable for growth, but we want it to be a growth target that you can measure,” she said.